Creating Your First Program

Welcome to Gecco! This guide will help you write, compile, and run your first program in Gecco. Let’s dive in!

Step 1: Setting Up Your Environment

Before you begin, make sure:

Gecco is installed on your system. (Refer to the Installation Guide for instructions.)
Your terminal or IDE is configured to use Gecco's compiler and tools.

Let’s start with the classic "Hello, World!" program. Open your preferred text editor or IDE and create a new file named hello.gec.

class Main {
    // Entry point of the program
    static func main() {
        print "Hello, World!"
    }
}

class Main {}: Defines the Main class, which is the starting point of your program.
static func main(): The main function serves as the program's entry point.
print: A built-in function to print text to the console.

To compile your program:

Open a terminal or command prompt.
Navigate to the directory containing hello.gec.
Run the Gecco compiler:
gecco-compiler hello.gec -o hello
This will generate an executable file named hello in the same directory.

Run the compiled program with the following command:

hello.exe

./hello

You should see the output:

Hello, World!

Now that you've successfully created and run your first program in Gecco, here are some ideas for what to try next:

Modify the message in println to display your name or a custom greeting.
Experiment with variables and loops (see the Language Basics page for more examples).
Build a program that takes user input and prints it back to the console.

Congratulations! You’ve just written your first Gecco program. 🎉

Need help? Check out our Community Forum or Troubleshooting Guide.

Last modified: 20 December 2024